floxed

Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs): We’re ALL at Risk

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adverse drug reactions

I’m lying in my bed, with my arms and legs straight out. I figured out pretty fast that any stress whatsoever on the tendons, makes things worse for days, weeks even. “Stress” includes not only trying to walk or use my arms or legs for any reason at all, but also simply bending my arms, or my knees, or my fingers, in one position for too long. What’s “too long”?  Maybe 3-5 minutes or so. I can’t use crutches or a wheelchair, because both of those involve use of my arms and shoulders and hands, which are also out of commission. I can’t type or use the computer, because every tendon in my fingers, hands, wrists, and arms are affected and severely painful. I can’t hold up a book to read, because the weight of the book is too much and I can’t bend my arms, without increasing the tendon pain. The weight of the sheets on my toes causes severe pain in the tendons there. There must be tendons around the eye muscles too, because it hurts simply to move my eyes. So I lay there in my bed, with my arms and legs flat out, with my head still and my eyes closed, waiting. Waiting for what, I’m not sure. It’s hard to believe that I went jogging and bike riding and swimming only a few days ago. I’m also in shock. How in the world could a simple antibiotic that I took for a simple UTI do this to me?

My Journey into the Frustrating World of ADR’s Begins

In March 2010 I took the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin for a simple UTI, and within days became one of the millions of people in this country who experience an Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) every year to a pharmaceutical drug that is deemed “safe” for use. My adverse reaction, as extreme as it was, unfortunately is not as “rare” as the public is led to believe. It turns out there were tens of thousands of other people, and possibly many times more that, also suffering from the same and similar reactions as I was as a result of this class of very popular antibiotics. There were no “Black Box Warnings” on my drug insert, and the warnings that were listed on the insert didn’t even remotely accurately describe what I was going through then, and continue to go through today.

I’ve been disabled ever since, often times going months without leaving the house, or even getting out of bed, as a result of those few pills. As I lay there waiting, I didn’t know if I was waiting to die or to live. With no known treatment, cure, or detox, or even any idea of why this happens in the first place to some of us, there was nothing left to do but wait.  Whatever was known about these reactions came from the victims themselves, observations painstakingly accumulated over time, sharing information that was now available on the internet. Pharma, the FDA, and the medical and pharmacy professions were noticeably and conveniently absent in having any knowledge, concern, clue, or curiosity about these reactions and why this happens in some people, or what to do about it. Their role in all this apparently ended the minute I took the drug.

I’ve had plenty of time to lay around and think about things in the past five years, given that I can’t do much else.  And understandably, I’m not too happy about this situation. It didn’t take me too long to figure out that my life, or what was left of it, was simply going to be a nameless, faceless, long lost forgotten statistic when it came to my ADR. There was no help on the way for me from the medical profession, the FDA, or Pharma to help me with my ADR, and as far as I could tell, absolutely no interest in learning anything from it by any of these parties either. And if there was one thing that became quite clear, it’s that everything was skewed in everyone else’s favor but mine when it came to my ADR. My physicians, pharmacists, the FDA, and of course Pharma, didn’t want to even acknowledge my ADR due to culpability and liability issues – which meant none of the numerous physicians I saw even bothered to report my ADR to anyone anywhere or the FDA. Without this acknowledgement, insurance companies didn’t want to pay for any “excessive testing” outside of the basic “Top 40 Diagnoses” screening tests for a non-existent problem. With “nothing wrong” on paper, I was denied any form of disability payments and probably considered to be a hypochondriac and/or malingerer trying to commit disability fraud. Even the legal profession, as hungry as they are for business, wasn’t interested in me once they found out I took the generic, since there is no legal recourse available with generic drugs. Everyone else in this chain of events walked away from my ADR unscathed, except, of course, me. I’m the one stuck living with it every minute of every day, with no assistance, and no end in sight. I’m the one scouring the internet, reading everything I can about my symptoms, reviewing the available research, paying for my own medical testing, looking for something, anything that will give a clue as to what this drug did to me and how to fix it.

The only other thing I can say about this scenario is that I’m actually not alone in my frustration and anger about this. There are millions of people out there who have been harmed by a pharmaceutical drug, vaccine, or medical device, in the same boat I am. Most of us have felt this same sense of abandonment by “the system”. Each one of us does the best we can, trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of a life destroyed by a pharmaceutical prescribed to us by the medical profession, and deemed “safe” for use by Pharma and the FDA.

We’re All Sitting Ducks, Sacrificial Lambs, and Play Russian Roulette When it Comes to ADR’s

Several issues have become quite clear to me since I got hit with my ADR. First, is that for the most part, everyone, from Pharma to physicians and pharmacists, to end consumers like you and me, accept that ADR’s are a part of the deal. A lot of rules and regulations are in place in a supposed effort to ensure that a pharmaceutical is safe for “most” of the population. And therein lies the unspoken fact. At the end of the day, no matter how much effort has been put into safety, it’s accepted that there will always be some people that will react negatively to a drug. There’s an implicit acceptance, regardless of how unpalatable it might be, that “some always have to be sacrificed for the greater good”. We just hope that sacrificial lamb won’t be us or those we love.

Secondly, is that pharmaceutical use, and their ADR’s, are here to stay. In the US, nearly 70% of the population is on one prescription drug, more than 50% are on two, and 20% are actually on five or more prescription medications.  Between 1990 and 2008, U.S. spending on prescription drugs increased from $40 billion to $234 billion. And this doesn’t even include all the over the counter meds. As a society, “Just Say No” has never worked for any drug, and that includes legal pharmaceuticals. Increasing right along with this pharmaceutical epidemic, are the “serious and fatal event” ADR’s, which have quadrupled in the past decade, even by the woefully inaccurate and under reported FDA records. Every single person reading this is at risk for experiencing one or more ADR’s in their lifetime. These ADR’s may be mild and transient, or severe, disabling, and long term or lifelong. They might even be those “fatal events” the fast talking monologues on the drug commercials always warn you about. The point is, no one reading this is safe or exempt from them.  Even people who are very “anti-Pharma” may find themselves on the operating table in the ER someday, being given any number of pharmaceuticals without the opportunity for “informed consent”. We are all at risk, and basically sitting ducks when it comes to ADR’s. I rarely took any medications or supplements, and had only taken antibiotics a few times in the first 50 years of my life. Despite that, I let my guard down once — it only took a few pills, and there was no going back from that mistake. I read the drug insert carefully, which talked about how a little transient mild nausea or GI upset might be the worst ADR, and further on down, mentioned “if you develop a pain in your Achilles tendon, call your doctor”. There was no hint in these warnings that these symptoms could be so extreme, permanent, disabling, and that “my doctor” had never heard of it and had no clue what to do about it either.

Third, is that pharmaceutical companies of course want to minimize, downplay, and outright deny ADR’s because they don’t want to open themselves up to culpability and liability issues and lose profits. From the limited “safety studies” that Pharma does on a drug pre-market, to “publishing bias” of only publishing research studies with data in their favor, to minimizing and hiding the adverse effects as they sell their products to the medical profession and us, Pharma does all they can to get a drug to market and profit from it. Once the drug gets to market, the big experiment occurs, as the drug is unleashed en masse on the general population. For those taking the drug, it’s essentially a game of Russian Roulette, no matter how “informed” you are. At that point in time, if things go wrong, it usually takes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people suffering severe ADR’s before any action, if any, is taken (think Thalidomide, DES, and more recently, Vioxx). YOUR life may be wrecked, but it’s no big deal to Pharma, the FDA, or even your doctors. If you experience a severe ADR, their lives will continue on, while your life becomes just another long lost statistic, simply considered the “cost of doing business”.

Pharma: The Untouchable Behemoth

It can seem pretty hopeless at times. Physicians and pharmacists get their extremely biased information on the drugs they prescribe directly from Pharma via Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives. These reps get more training in marketing and selling, than in knowing anything about the products they’re selling. If the more curious and ethical physicians actually do take the time to look up the research, they will see biased research studies funded by Pharma, all minimizing the risks while highlighting the benefits. The FDA, who relies on Pharma to do the research studies and present the findings on safety and efficacy of drugs, as well as relies on Pharma as a large source of funding for their own organization, is equally in the dark and basically impotent, as they now see Pharma as their main client to serve, and not the public. And we, the people?  We’re the sacrificial lambs, the sitting ducks, and the true massive post surveillant “research study” when we play Russian Roulette with safety and efficacy of any drug Pharma puts out. The icing on the cake for Pharma is that they can laugh all the way to the bank, no matter how many people are harmed, in the meantime. If, despite Pharma’s best attempts, a drug indeed is found to be unsafe, their main goal is to sell the hell out of it to keep bringing in profits until they are absolutely and overwhelmingly forced to remove it from the market.

This is nothing really new. If you live long enough, or read history, you will see the same old story over and over again, whether in the pharmaceutical industry or any other industry. And if you think your doctor or the medical profession is any smarter than the rest of us, think again. As I discussed here, in another writing:

“My own mother was “prescribed” cigarettes – yes, that’s right – as part of her “prenatal care”, she was told to start smoking by her doctor while pregnant with my younger sister “to prevent hemorrhoids”.  We can laugh, or be aghast now at such a notion, but an entire generation, including the medical profession at the time, was repeatedly brainwashed by the corporations manufacturing these products, and they would leave no stone unturned in promoting the “health and safety” of their products for the sole interest of their own profits.”  (See:  here, and here.  And for anyone wondering, the ‘science’ behind this is that nicotine constricts blood vessels.  And yes, this is exactly how my mother started smoking at age 32).

I provide this example simply to highlight the fact that medical professionals are subject to the same corporate and cultural forces that we all are.  Drugs that would never be blithely and indiscriminately prescribed today, such as Thalidomide, DES, Vioxx, and many others were routinely prescribed by physicians in the not too distant past, and this apparently includes “cigarettes” as well. The point being, is the drug your doctor prescribing you today the result of a judicious, prudent, and well thought out approach deemed absolutely necessary for your health?  Or is it simply the latest fad promoted by Pharma, the next big blockbuster drug for their coffers, being offered you even when safer, less expensive, or better alternatives may exist?

“Your doctor” is subject to the same forces everyone else is, and they happen to be a very important target for Pharma in particular.  Most physicians are honorable, trying to do the best they can with the information they have, but the fact is, they might not know any more than you do if what they’re selling (prescribing) you is a necessary and lifesaving drug, or a ‘cigarette’ of a drug. It turns out, when it came to my particular ADR, plenty of medical professionals have been hit and suffer from the same ADR’s. I sure wish I had known that before I took the drug, because now I’m one of them.

The odds are overwhelmingly in Pharma’s favor and against us.  And despite everything I’ve written, I’m not really “anti-pharmaceutical”.  I’m well aware pharmaceuticals and modern medicine have helped and saved many lives. I happen to love both science and medicine, and I’m a big believer in using the fruits of ethical, curiosity-driven science and medicine in its truest, most honorable and noble form — to improve the health and welfare of individuals and society as a whole. The problem is, that’s not a description of current day Pharma. Phrases more apt to come to mind with the word “Pharma” now include:  Corporate Greed, Profits at All Costs, America’s legal Drug Cartel, White Collar Drug Dealers, and  “Pharmageddon”. The medical profession is allowing themselves to be reduced to Pharma’s “drug pushers”, pushing pills for everything and everybody even if they’re not necessary or downright dangerous, with drugs as the first and sole option offered even when other options such as healthy lifestyle changes can help.

Given these odds, is there anything we can do to protect ourselves? Is there anything we can do to demand change?

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was first published on June 8, 2015.

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The Earth is Floxed

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floxed earth fluoroquinolones environment

“The earth is badly floxed.”

I’m not sure if the person who wrote that meant it literally or figuratively, but, I agree – both literally and figuratively – the earth is badly floxed.  (“Floxed” is short-hand for suffering from fluoroquinolone toxicity – an adverse reaction to cipro/ciprofloxacin, levaquin/levofloxacin, avelox/moxifloxacin or any of the other fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Fluoroquinolone toxicity manifests as a multi-symptom, often chronic, disease.)

Fluoroquinolone residues are everywhere. They are ubiquitous in meat, water, milk, honey, soil, etc. Fluoroquinolone residues get into our water through human and animal waste.  The drugs are excreted through the urine and feces of those who take them, and the drug residues get into our water supply.  Animal waste (manure) containing fluoroquinolone residues are also used as fertilizers.  “Large quantities of fluoroquinolone carboxylic acid (FQCA) derivatives are applied as antibacterial agents in large-scale animal husbandry. Important quantities are transported to agricultural areas by means of liquid manure.” (source)  Fluoroquinolone molecules are spread throughout our soil, and get into our food, both through the use of that contaminated feces as fertilizer, and through livestock excreting onto the ground.

Fluoroquinolones not only hurt the animals (including humans) that they are directly administered to – causing multi-symptom illness that includes destruction of tendons, cartilage, muscles, nerves, etc., they also harm the soil that they end up in – the earth.

Soil is rich with biodiversity. There are many strains of bacteria, viruses and fungi in soil. Some of these bacteria, viruses and fungi are dangerous to animals, but most are not. Most are helpful to all forms of life. The soil microbiome is as important to soil (earth) as the human microbiome is to humans. The microbiome within each human contains ten times the number of cells of the human himself/herself.  A healthy human microbiome is necessary for immune system health, mental health, digestive system functionality, etc.  Our bacteria, both the good and the bad, are part of us and they work symbiotically with us.  Without the bacteria in our microbiome, we would die.

The importance of the soil microbiome for various ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, soil fertility, degradation of pollutants, and plant growth promotion is well recognized. However, antibiotics introduced into agricultural fields via manure might alter the ability of soil microbes to fulfill crucial ecosystem services, changing the diversity and activity of key functional groups by enhancing antibiotic resistant populations while decreasing the abundance of sensitive populations in soils. (source)

Introducing powerful, man-made, antibiotics to the soil can have hugely deleterious effects on the soil.  Somewhat counter intuitively, when soil is exposed to antibiotics, the dangerous pathogens within the soil adapt and propagate while the “good” bacteria that keep them in check are killed – filling the soil with the stronger, pathogenic bacteria and eliminating the helpful bacteria. A study published in PLOS One entitled “Dynamics of Soil Bacterial Communities in Response to Repeated Application of Manure Containing Sulfadiazine” notes that, “The amendment of soil with SDZ (antibiotic filled) manure resulted in a significantly increased relative abundance of numerous Gram-negative and Gram-positive taxa such as Devosia, Shinella, Stenotrophomonas, Clostridium, Peptostreptococcus, Leifsonia, Gemmatimonas, suggesting that the presence of SDZ provided a selective advantage for these taxa.”  SDZ, sulfadiazine, a sulfa antibiotic, is the antibiotic used in the experiment. It is not a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. A similar experiment has not yet been done regarding the effects of fluoroquinolones on soil. The 2014 study notes that, “The present study is the first to explore the influence of veterinary antibiotics entering soil via manure on the diversity and abundance of Acidobacteria.”  However, it should be noted that fluoroquinolones are used frequently in animal husbandry.

In an article about “Dynamics of Soil Bacterial Communities in Response to Repeated Application of Manure Containing Sulfadiazine” it was noted that:

After repeated application of manure contaminated with antibiotics, we found a decrease in the bacteria that are important for good soil quality. This means a loss of soil fertility and thus in the long run a decline in crop yields,’ said Professor Michael Schloter, head of Research Unit Environmental Genomics at Helmholtz Zentrum München. ‘Moreover, the number of microbes living in the soil that are harmful to humans increased’ under the experimental conditions of the study. (source)

Soil naturally has a balanced microbiome. Diverse bacteria and fungi within soil performs many valuable functions. Some of the bacteria, viruses and fungi in soil can be pathogenic when they get out of hand. Bacteria and fungi with natural antibiotic qualities typically keep these dangerous bacteria, fungi and viruses in check. For example, penicillin is a fungi that is naturally found in soil. Penicillin kills bacteria, but it doesn’t decimate the entire soil microbiome. It eliminates some of the pathogenic bacteria, but not all of the bacteria.  However, when man-made antibiotics, some of which disrupt the process of DNA replication and reproduction for the bacteria and mitochondria that they come in contact with – as is the case for fluoroquinolones, saturate soil, the balance of “good” and “bad” bacteria is disturbed, and (potentially) harmful bacteria propagate while the good bacteria that keep them in check are killed.

The earth is badly contaminated with antibiotics being excreted from livestock. The microbiome of the soil has been disturbed because of the rampant, foolish use of antibiotics in livestock.

Though fluoroquinolones are not the most commonly used antibiotics in agriculture, they are used.  And as bacteria become more resistant to commonly used antibiotics, more powerful antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones, are likely to increase in popularity. The earth is already floxed, with fluoroquinolone residues found in meat, water, milk, honey, soil, etc. The microbiome of the earth is being disturbed by fluoroquinolone, and other, antibiotics.

The “scorched earth” policy of killing all bacteria with antibiotics is foolish and short sighted. The goal should be a balanced microbiome, with “good” bacteria keeping “bad” bacteria in check. When antibiotics are used, pathogenic bacteria are made stronger, while the “good” bacteria that naturally keep them in check are extinguished. This is true both within each human microbiome, and throughout the earth – especially in the soil. Professor Michael Schloter, also notes that,

The increase in human pathogenic microorganisms in the environment has wide-reaching consequences for human health. We are in continuous contact with these microorganisms, and the probability of contracting an infection increases accordingly. This applies particularly to diseases of the respiratory system and the lungs, as bacteria are spread through the air and inhaled. Moreover, many of the bacteria are resistant to commonly used antibiotics, which often makes treatment more difficult. We must therefore urgently develop a new mindset as regards the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry.

We have entered a vicious cycle of foolish antibiotic use.  Antibiotics decimate the microbiome of the organism (or whatever you want to call soil) that is exposed to them.  The surviving bacteria are the stronger, often more pathogenic, bacteria.  These “bad” bacteria make people and animals sick, and the microbiome no longer has the “good” bacteria to fight the pathogenic bacteria. Sick people and animals take more antibiotics, which the already strengthened bad bacteria have adapted to. Antibiotic resistance increases.  Increasingly dangerous antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones, are used. The cycle continues on and on, with increasing intensity and damage inflicted.

Humans often need antibiotics in order to survive bacterial infections.  Sometimes the cycle of bacterial decimation is necessary in order to save a life. However, the use of antibiotics in agriculture is nothing but foolish. The use of antibiotics in agriculture is, indeed, floxing the earth.

Resources:

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Information about the author, and adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) can be found on Lisa Bloomquist’s site, www.floxiehope.com.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter. 

Image by Peter H from Pixabay.

This article was published originally in December 2014.

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Musings of a Heretic Patient: Floxed and Fed Up

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fluoroquinolone toxicity

After mulling it over for quite some time, I wanted to comment on something we all encounter much too frequently in our floxed lives. That is, specifically, the negative experiences we are often forced to endure with our doctors. As patients, harmed by a widely over prescribed drug, we are often dismissed whenever we propose a connection between fluoroquinolones and the adverse side effects we experience as their patients.

I cannot even begin to quantify the level of frustration and anger I feel whenever I’ve been confronted with this in my doctors visits. It’s demeaning and demoralizing to be treated as if I am a complete moron for broaching the subject whenever they come up empty on their diagnosis.

At first I chalked it up to ego because after all, THEY are the “experts” and I am just one of the great uneducated with the audacity to question their expertise and search for answers beyond their own. I know what it feels like to be sneeringly, denigrated for my research. To be called a GOOGLE doctor for simply not accepting their non-diagnosis as a diagnosis.

Oh, the times I felt like screaming and pulling my hair out in my doctor’s office. The times I became so frustrated I wanted to overturn the tables and rip those stupid charts from the walls are just too innumerable to count on my flox journey.

Laying the blame on ego alone was the simplistic answer but something always niggled at me every time I left the office, depressed and defeated.

Why was I always making excuses for what was so obviously a rude and demeaning attitude towards my quest for answers? Why were all my doctors so hostile to my input and so dismissive of my efforts at educating myself? What lay beneath this dismissal of my pain and the destruction of my body that even they could not deny?

Today it happened again and it sparked me into writing this post.

The Heresy of Questioning a Doctor

I have come to learn that a few of the common tactics used by doctors can be identified. Many of them are being used to work against us when confronting a doctor’s assessment of our specific issues.

The first one is utilizing our lack of a formal medical education to minimize our efforts. It’s the most obvious use of the power dynamic they conjure to silence us. Questioning a doctor is an anarchistic act. It challenges the authority of the empirical medical model, the one we’ve been programmed from childhood to believe has all the answers. The one domain that is so sacrosanct in our society that questioning it is bordering on the heretical and places you squarely outside the acceptable behavior circle.

I have come to accept that I am now a heretic and so is anyone who steps outside the medical status quo in their search for answers. Like any heretic, I need to be prepared for the onslaught of disapproval and derision I might receive for questioning the medical gods. I need to remember to arm myself psychically and mentally for every visit. The fact that I must do this saddens me. It illustrates just how meaningless and hollow the Hippocratic Oath has become to our modern medicine men.

“Nor shall any man’s entreaty prevail upon me to administer poison to anyone; neither will I counsel any man to do so.”

Plausible Deniability in Medicine

Another tactic used by physicians to dismiss patient concerns is plausible deniability. Physicians now rely on plausible deniability to explain away their non actions or worse. It is the deliberate and destructive act they use against the very people they have sworn to heal. It’s also known as covering their asses. Knowing this and accepting that this is the norm rather than the exception has been a bitter pill for me to swallow but imperative to retaining my sanity.

And Then There is Gaslighting

Another thing I’ve come to recognize as a tactic is what I call medical gaslighting. Gaslighting is a very effective but abusive form of diversion. In this case, a physician utilizes an established (though questionable) psychological diagnosis as a convenient way of absolving their non actions in your case. It also serves to stopgap any further digging into causal links and diverts attention away from the physicians own culpability. How many times have I been told that my symptoms are all in my head? Too many times to count. And since my symptoms don’t fit any known disease model, I must be suffering from a psychological malady.

This has now become a part of the DSM-5 lexicon of psychiatric diagnosis and poses further harm to people like myself and anyone whose symptoms cannot be easily pinpointed to any one specific disease. If anyone, who like myself has been previously diagnosed with a mental illness (depression, PTSD) these diagnoses further serve to de-legitimize the patient’s experience.

We need to be aware that even when we have the hard evidence of medical research to back up our claims, we will be challenged and possibly labeled. If we refuse to accept this knee jerk assessment or the drugs they will inevitably prescribe to treat our “real” issues we might find ourselves tagged with the non-compliant stamp.

I write this as a warning to everyone who finds themselves on this page. You might hit some very daunting, brick walls along this journey but know that you are not alone. One day we will be vindicated, this crime will be exposed, and Big Pharma and all colluding physicians and corrupt governmental agencies will be brought low.

For those who have been blessed with that one special physician who listens and learns, I am grateful to see that ethics still exist. It’s heartening to know that there are doctors out there who can put ego and material gain aside and remain open to their patient’s body awareness and desire for healing. Sadly, those doctors risk becoming medical heretics too, banned and derided by the more conventional experts, the same experts that employ the tactics listed above.

In the end, I know we will win and a big part of that victory comes from the massive amount of support and experience we find on our support pages. Thank you to all my fellow floxies. You are the vanguards of this battle and close to my heart.

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This post was published originally on Hormones Matter on October, 2015.

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Fluoroquinolone Poisoning: A Tale from the Twilight Zone

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Kristin Weber

Imagine the following scenario: you’re sick with an ailment that prompts you to visit your doctor. During the exam you’re found to have a bacterial infection, so you’re prescribed a course of antibiotics. You take your medication and experience very minimal side effects. Your infection clears up, and you return to normal life. We’ve all been there many times, I’m sure.

In another version of this scenario, perhaps your antibiotic gives you problematic side effects such as headache, nausea, stomachache, or diarrhea. Maybe these ailments are troublesome, but you endure them while finishing your prescription. After all, side effects go away, right? Chances are, most of us have experienced this as well.

Now try to imagine a third scenario. It’s long, but I implore you to read it.

Adverse Reaction: The Fluoroquinolone Nightmare Begins

You visit your doctor for a suspected UTI, and she prescribes Cipro, an antibiotic in the Fluoroquinolone (FQ) family, which you are to take for a week. Three days after finishing, you abruptly experience an explosion of symptoms. You get the worst headache of your life. You become confused and tongue-tied during a simple conversation, but you believe you’re simply tired, so you go to sleep. You wake up the next morning and feel burning, stabbing pains everywhere, and numbness and tingling in your hands, feet, and face. Your muscles twitch. You have widespread body pain, and hear audible crackling of your joints every time you stretch or take a step. You have trouble walking, and your ears ring. Your mind is dulled, and you struggle to follow conversations and recall words. You feel a vibrating sensation from deep in your bones, like your body has been plugged into an electrical outlet.

Imagine that you’ve saved the package insert from your antibiotic, so you read it to see if perhaps your symptoms could be related to the drug. (You remember feeling mild but strange sensations in your arms while taking Cipro the week before, but didn’t think much of it at the time.) You’re shocked to find the following paragraph:

Ciprofloxacin should be discontinued if the patient experiences symptoms of neuropathy including pain, burning, tingling, numbness, and/or weakness, or is found to have deficits in light touch, pain, temperature, position sense, vibratory sensation, and/or motor strength in order to prevent the development of an irreversible condition.

An irreversible condition?

In addition, the following words and phrases stood out:

  • Tendon and joint damage
  • Joint stiffness
  • Achiness
  • Muscle weakness
  • Tendon rupture
  • Tendonitis
  • Central nervous system events
  • Nervousness
  • Agitation
  • Insomnia
  • Anxiety
  • Adverse reaction
  • Contact your doctor

Oh my god. Surely you can’t be having an adverse reaction to a drug, can you?

You open your laptop and type the words “adverse reaction Cipro” into google. You’re shocked to find websites detailing the very symptoms you’re suddenly experiencing. You find YouTube videos warning people of the dangers of Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, and a support group with over 3000 members. They’ve named the condition “Fluoroquinolone Toxicity”. They call their cluster of symptoms being “floxed”, and themselves “floxies”. Someone wrote a book describing what ONE Fluoroquinolone pill did to his wife, prompting extensive research into pharmaceutical industry corruption.

Worse, you learn that no viable treatment exists for this toxicity. People become guinea pigs trying various supplements and healing modalities in a desperate attempt to find relief, because no one else is helping them. No one believes them. Not doctors, sometimes not even friends and family. They are sick and suffering for weeks, months, or years. Some suffer for decades. Some commit suicide.

This can’t be happening.

You call your doctor’s office, relay your symptoms, and inform them of your adverse reaction to Cipro. A nurse calls back and advises you to drink eight glasses of water that day to help flush the medication from your system, and to follow up with your doctor.

The next morning you march into the doctor’s office with your wobbly, burning legs, feeling even worse. You mention the Cipro package insert and the online support group with 3000 people experiencing the same symptoms as you, but your doctor doesn’t believe Cipro caused your problems. She thinks you have Guillain-Barré Syndrome, so she sends you to the ER. The ER doctors don’t believe you, either; they think you have an anxiety disorder.

“The drug left your system days ago; it can’t be causing those symptoms.”

You go home and post a message to the online support group. “My doctor doesn’t believe me even though I showed her the drug insert listing the symptoms of an adverse reaction.” People console and advise you, thus marking the beginning of several friendships with a diverse group of strangers united in their suffering.

After a few days you’ll return to the first doctor, who will switch her focus to either Multiple Sclerosis or Conversion Disorder, a fancy name meaning “yes, you have real symptoms, but they originate in your mind.” She’ll refer you to a neurologist to rule out MS and send you on your way.

You’ll keep returning to doctors seeking help with your issues, or even a simple validation that Cipro wrecked your health. It will never come. You’ll feel poisoned, like you’re on the brink of death with over 40 symptoms, yet all your medical tests will be normal.

“Cipro doesn’t cause this ‘syndrome’,” doctors will say.

They’ll offer Prozac to treat the mental disorder they believe you have.

Now imagine spending three entire years dealing with this, suffering in ways you never imagined possible, every day bringing a new version of misery. Some days you can’t walk without pain. Some days your hands and feet burn all day. Some days a migraine slurs your speech, and makes you feel cross-eyed with distorted limbs, and joints twisted up like a pretzel. Some days you feel electrocuted; other days fatigue leaves you with leaden limbs, a supreme effort required for every move. Some days you’ll experience all of the above, and then some.

Some days you’ll lean on furniture at work – sick, exhausted, and shocked that you haven’t collapsed onto the floor yet. Some days you can’t bring yourself to go to work, so you stay home. But resting does not provide relief. Nothing provides relief.

Because Cipro caused insomnia, you’ll be unable to sleep more than a few hours a night for weeks, months, years. A six hour stretch will become a rare miracle. Some nights, when you do drift off to sleep, you’ll be abruptly awakened by loud zapping noises and sensations in your head. This may happen as many as 20 times before you finally succumb to broken sleep.

Environmental Triggers are Real: Post Fluoroquinolone Reactions

One day you’ll realize that, in addition to the symptoms Cipro caused, you are also reacting to environmental triggers. You’ll remember that your symptoms worsened after dying your hair and moving to a newly-constructed workplace with its fresh carpet, paint, and building materials. You’ll recall the times you arrived at work with your normal Cipro symptoms, but also developed dizziness, nausea, confusion, a stuffy head, burning lungs, and more within half an hour and how those symptoms would ease on the drive home.

You’ll remember the time you felt like you were having a stroke shortly after applying a new lip balm – how you had to steady yourself on your boyfriend’s arm so you wouldn’t fall while walking through the grocery store. You’ll realize you now get a headache every time someone smokes a cigarette nearby, which fades about 20 minutes afterward. In hindsight, you’ll recall several other examples which point to environmental triggers, finally understanding the cause of some of your misery.

The environmental component will also explain why you’ve been unable to tolerate medications to ease your suffering: ever since you took Cipro, your body now reacts to them like foreign invaders, the same way it reacts to other chemicals. Advil now gives you stabbing joint pains and flares your neuropathy. Tylenol makes you drowsy. Both pain medications paradoxically cause headaches. Zantac causes mental confusion and agitation – side effects “typically only seen in severely ill, elderly patients”, according to the package insert. Your days of over-the-counter relief for common ailments will be over.

You’ll post a message to your support group for commiseration, and someone will respond, telling you she developed Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) after her adverse reaction – that many floxies have become sensitive to foods and chemicals, and must avoid their triggers in order to feel well. You’ve never heard of MCS, but you’ll be relieved to learn of possible tangible ways to finally ease your symptoms. This relief will be short-lived, however, once you consult your doctor.

“I’ve finally figured out the reason for some of these terrible symptoms,” you’ll explain. “Every time I go to work I get a headache, dizziness, and nausea, and my neuropathy flares up. I think I’m reacting to the new paint, carpeting, and drywall materials. Plus, I feel even worse when t-shirts are printed – I think I’m reacting to the chemicals in the fumes.”

Your doctor will stop you and put up his hand. “There’s no such thing as chemical sensitivity,” he’ll say. “If you continue down this road, you’ll be labeled mentally ill.”

You’ll plead with him. “How can that be? I know this is real; I have countless examples from before I even learned what MCS was.”

“You should stay off the internet,” he’ll advise. “There’s a lot of false information out there.”

“But this was happening to me long before I ever connected my symptoms to chemical exposure; reading about it didn’t cause delusions – it confirmed the reason I feel sick all the time.”

You’ll tell him about the day you were working with the outside door open and suddenly developed an instant headache and became very dizzy. You couldn’t understand why, until a few minutes later when a landscaper spraying herbicide walked by.

“How could MCS be all in my head when I was completely unaware a chemical was being sprayed nearby? It’s not as though I smelled it, became anxious, and developed anxiety-related symptoms. The chemical was odorless and I had no idea why I was suddenly ill until I saw the landscaper.”

But your doctor will remain unconvinced. Nothing you say will matter. He will never believe Cipro harmed you, or that you developed MCS. You’ll keep returning to this doctor for months, hoping in vain that one day he’ll believe you, or that he’ll somehow be able to help you. That day will never come.

What will happen, instead, is that you’ll develop PTSD from the trauma of suffering acute, daily illness and having medical professionals – the people in charge of your healthcare, the people you always thought would help in times like these – completely dismiss your suffering as psychological. The post-traumatic stress will become so bad that you won’t be able to make a doctor’s appointment over the phone anymore without shaking and bursting into tears.

You’ll learn to minimize your adverse reaction to Cipro with new doctors, and to never call MCS by name anymore. You’ll say, “I tend to get unpleasant side effects from drugs,” and “Certain foods and strong scents give me migraines.” Because by this time, you’ll have realized that no standard treatment exists for MCS – just like Fluoroquinolone Toxicity. Many people sink tens of thousands of dollars into nutritional therapies from integrative and alternative practitioners without seeing much improvement in their health. Or if they do, they must still practice strict avoidance of chemicals in order to maintain their health.

But you don’t have tens of thousands of dollars, and insurance won’t cover tests and treatments for a health condition they don’t believe exists. You’ll realize with horror that there is nowhere to turn.

Dark Night of the Soul

Your health will worsen in the coming weeks and months. Nothing will provide relief except avoiding triggers, which will be nearly impossible (and never will the relief be 100%). Your favorite foods and drinks will cause unbearable symptoms. Walking by a person wearing perfume will cause an instant migraine. A trip to the grocery store will ruin you for the rest of the day with all the ambient chemicals from within the store, as well as people’s personal care products and the laundry detergent residue lingering on their clothes.

You’ll suffer through colds and other illnesses with no relief whatsoever, because you won’t be able to take medications. Sleeping your misery away won’t even be an option, because you’ll still have insomnia, and Cipro destroyed your ability to nap during the day.

Cipro destroyed everything.

Working will become unbearable because of the constant exposure to chemicals, but you won’t be able to quit because you have a child to care for. You’ll ask your boss to instate a “no perfume” policy for the workplace to help ease your misery, but he won’t. You’ll begin to wear a mask to filter chemicals, which will make people look at you like you’re a crazy germaphobe. But wearing the mask is the only way you can continue working while minimizing the urge to someday drive off the embankment of a highway to your death, because you just can’t handle being sick for another second and you have to make it stop.

You’ll have nightmares about being forced to take Cipro against your will, or forced to breathe Lysol while people tell you it’s safe, and can’t possibly make you ill.

Once night, you’ll dream you’re wandering through a graveyard, desperately looking for a place to sit and relax, but every time you find one you’ll be forced to get up and move somewhere else. This will continue for hours, until you are so weary you can barely move. You’ll awaken, and curse your inability to rest, even during sleep. Then you’ll realize this dream was a metaphor for your new, post-illness life: a never-ending, elusive search for help and comfort within the graveyard of your life. Because there is no outside comfort anymore…and nowhere to turn for help.

Your life, seemingly overnight, will resemble an episode of The Twilight Zone. While you’re suffering you’ll watch the whole world carry on as normal, with people either in outright denial of your plight, or enjoying their lives in blissful ignorance. You’ll hear of people taking fluoroquinolones with no adverse effects, not realizing that people can take several prescriptions before reaching a threshold of tolerance that could render them just as ill as everyone in your support group. Not realizing that FQs can cause delayed reactions – symptoms that don’t show up for days, weeks, or months after the last pill is swallowed. You’ll try to warn people, but they won’t believe you.

Nearly every single day someone in your FQ support group will mention a friend, relative, or stranger they met in public who developed mysterious health ailments doctors couldn’t diagnose, right after taking Cipro, Levaquin, or Avelox. People who didn’t initially connect the onset of their symptoms to antibiotic usage until someone encouraged them to check their medical records.

New people will join your support group every single day telling a similar version of your story, and met with a similar level of disbelief from people in their lives. Everywhere you turn, you will hear (or hear of) the following being said:

  • “Cipro doesn’t cause those symptoms.”
  • “Prescription drugs can’t do that to people. Something else must be wrong with you.”
  • “You’re Googling too much. Stay off the internet.”
  • “Your support group members are probably exaggerating.”
  • “Your joints hurt? That’s called aging.”
  • “The drug is out of your system within a certain amount of hours. There’s no way it can cause damage after that time.”
  • “If fluoroquinolones were that bad, they wouldn’t be on the market.”
  • “There’s no such thing as chemical sensitivity, or environmental illness.”

You’ll long to shout warnings from the rooftops about what happened to you, and what you see happening in your support groups every day, but you won’t be able to because you’ll still have PTSD, and talking about the health experiences the whole world seems to deny will make you sound like a paranoid, conspiracy theorist. So, you’ll stop talking about it, and suffer mostly in silence, pretending things aren’t so bad.

Except…things are bad. Every day will be torture, physically and mentally. Every day you’ll want to die, but you’ll cling to life instead, weary and miserable, not quite understanding how you manage to endure this level of illness every single day. Not quite understanding how anything could ever be okay again. But you won’t be able to exit this world, because your child needs you – a child who you’ve lost the ability to effectively parent, or enjoy the company of, because of a pharmaceutical-induced illness. A child who sometimes draws angry-looking pictures of you using your laptop and writes, “Mommy is always on the computer”.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” you’ll say. “Mommy is sick and is just trying to figure out how to get better.”

Your small child will grow into a young adult. Much later, you’ll grieve the time you lost with him while in a sickly fog, struggling to work and maintain a semblance of a life. You’ll find yourself making post-death requests to the universe, just in case there is an afterlife, to please let you come back and spend that time with your child. Please let you immerse yourself in those precious, fleeting moments, and enjoy and love him without the weight of illness and misery and constant worry that overshadows any joy life holds.

Every day you’ll miss your former, healthy self. You’ll reread emails you sent people before you got sick, and mourn the person who made quick-witted jokes and used words you cannot recall the meanings of anymore. You’ll think about how the drug altered your once-sharp mind like a chemical lobotomy. You’ll wonder if you’ll ever be okay again.

Post Fluoroquinolone Healing: Unexpected Gifts

One day you’ll decide you can’t endure another second of suffering. You’ll say to yourself, “If I’m going to be sick every last day of my life, I’m going to find some level of happiness again, no matter how minuscule.” So, you’ll begin grasping for anything. One day you might search the internet for humor and laugh a little bit, even though your hands and feet burn and you can’t think straight that day. Or you might notice the color of the trees and the sky on your way to work, and feel struck by their beauty. You’ll enjoy conversations with your child even while you’re sick. You’ll watch funny or uplifting movies.

You’ll begin to learn that happiness can exist alongside your pain, that suffering doesn’t always have to negate your joy. Sometimes, yes, but not always. Because while you hurt, you also live and breathe. You are still alive. You can still notice the beauty in your surroundings, even when your internal world feels unbearable. You can still laugh, even if the next moment leaves you in tears. And you can still love: your family, your friends, kind people in the world…even yourself. Especially yourself. You may feel as though the world has cast you aside, your life in shambles, but you still matter. You are still a person of worth.

Then, a miracle will occur: like a phoenix rising from the ashes, little glimmers of your long-lost self will begin to return. You’ll remember who you are beyond this sickly, lost person. You’ll realize that beyond your suffering lies an untouchable spirit that will always exist. That illness cannot break you. It may seem to at times, but it cannot change who you are at your very core, no matter how much pain or suffering your body is experiencing. This thought will comfort you in inexplicable ways.

You’ll learn that when there is nowhere left to turn, you can always turn within. That no one can take that away from you.

You’ll begin to forgive the people who don’t believe you, doctors and all, for you’ll remember that we all do the best we can with the information we have. You’ll realize that perhaps people can’t face the truth because it will alter the foundation they’ve built their lives upon, or destroy the sense of safety that enables them to continue living in this harsh world of ours. After all, medications are not supposed to cause this level of harm. And when you think about it, MCS does sound like a psychological illness, even though it’s not. But you’ll forgive the people who doubt you, because you may not have believed any of it either, had it not happened to you personally.

One day you’ll realize that gifts have arisen from your struggle – that, ironically, the worst experience of your life allowed you to bear witness to the best.

First, you’ll notice how the people in your support groups exemplify the inherent good of humanity by offering support and friendship, and sometimes even monetary assistance to members in crisis, often persevering through debilitating symptoms to help each other when no one else will. This is a stark contrast to the corruption, greed, and lack of compassion displayed by the pharmaceutical companies who shattered all of your lives. You’ll see how their corruption indirectly bred a deep empathy and compassion among their victims, their darkness transmuted into a light directed toward each other, as well as others who have no idea they could someday fall victim to this level of suffering. To the degree that your ordeal destroyed your faith in humanity, your support group members will renew it.

The second gift will be in recognizing the lessons which surviving hardship brought you – lessons about perseverance, inner strength, self-worth, confidence, humility, compassion, and forgiveness – and realizing you wouldn’t trade the growth born from these lessons, even if it meant reliving your health struggle all over again. (Though you will still long to have learned them less painfully, would that have been an option.) You’ll realize that, paradoxically, your isolating, alienating illnesses indirectly revealed your underlying connection to everyone you share the world with. You’ll know that although you wouldn’t consider illness a friend, it has certainly been one of your most powerful teachers.

Gradually you’ll begin to see better days, and eventually return to an acceptable level of functioning, even though you’ll probably never return to your former state of health. Your experiences will haunt you, though, following you around like storm clouds, threatening to erupt again, sending you back into the depths of hell. But you’ll fervently hope, should that someday occur, that you’ll once again survive.

One day, you’ll even tell your story in spite of the traumas that arise during the telling, knowing that giving voice to your experience may prevent the suffering of others, and add to the chorus of voices fighting to ultimately stop the rampant poisoning of people every day – people who are being hurt and tossed away by chemical and pharmaceutical companies as though their lives are meaningless.

You’ll know that saving even one person from the suffering you endured will be worth the potential disbelief, and even ridicule, that may come your way through the telling of your story. You’ll know that you no longer need anyone else to validate your illnesses, or any of your experiences, for that matter. Because, ultimately, your health ordeal has taught you to stand in your own truth with confidence – no matter what others believe, no matter how they might judge you.

Besides, if you’re strong enough to survive not one, but two invisible, unacknowledged illnesses, you’re strong enough to survive anything.

A Dire Warning

I know…you can’t relate to this third scenario, can you? Unless you’re a member of one of my support groups, you probably can’t. But thousands of us can, and we’re growing in number every day. We each have our own version of the same story. Because we know our stories could someday be yours, we’re fighting tirelessly in a variety of ways to bring awareness to the potentially devastating effects of fluoroquinolone antibiotics.

In fact, since I began writing this, over 40 news reports about fluoroquinolones have sprung up. Word is finally getting out.

My hope in sharing my story is that people research the medications they are prescribed, especially antibiotics, and never take a fluoroquinolone (Cipro, Levaquin, and Avelox) unless all other options have been exhausted. Fluoroquinolones are the atomic bombs of the antibiotic world. None of the other antibiotics on the market can cause permanent peripheral nerve damage and tendon rupture, not to mention the cluster of symptoms I described above. These adverse effects are not as rare as pharmaceutical companies claim. Not only that, but the FDA is not adequately protecting consumers from this multi-billion dollar, profit-driven industry, whose aggressive pursuit of such profits can lead to corruption. Were this not the case, I wouldn’t be telling this story today. Therefore, we need to take more responsibility for our own health and safety instead of blindly trusting the information pharmaceutical companies feed to the FDA and our doctors, because sometimes this information is misleading.

The problems within our modern medical paradigm are complicated and multi-faceted. I wish I knew how to fix them, but I do not. I do know, however, that my individual story is a symptom of major flaws within a system in desperate need of healing. Corporations should not be allowed to destroy people’s health and lives while denying or minimizing it, leaving them to suffer while watching it continue to happen to others over and over again, like a perpetual Twilight Zone episode. A medical system theoretically designed to “first do no harm”, should not dismiss those suffering at the hands of this broken system and label them mentally ill. (Not that there is shame in mental illness; but there IS shame in cavalierly assigning this label while willfully ignoring the truth.) In spite of the incredible, life-saving medical advances in existence today, any system which heals some but destroys others and leaves them to suffer alone is, in fact, broken.

Despite my ordeal, I still believe in the underlying good of humanity. I know we can do better than this.

Speak Up and Speak Out

Collectively, we need to acknowledge that, for all the virtues of modern medicine, there is also a vast dark side. We need to examine the myriad of reasons this dark side exists in the first place, and actively begin to change it.

We also need to change our response to people living with mystery illnesses our medical establishment does not yet acknowledge or understand how to treat, hopefully with more open-mindedness, curiosity, and compassion instead of judgment and dismissive skepticism. Think about this: didn’t most newly discovered illnesses, at one time, begin with a general lack of understanding and acceptance within the medical world? To act as though today’s medical knowledge base is static and impervious to change via new discoveries is misguided and harmful. But every time people – especially doctors – dismiss patients with a condescending disbelief in their illness, clinging tightly to old paradigms, they are effectively halting further scientific understanding for themselves, and potentially the rest of the world as well. They are also denying vital support, empathy, and care to people who suffer.

Please, stop dismissing the people whose lives have been altered by prescription drugs, medical procedures, chemical exposures, or other illnesses which leave them on the fringes of society with little support. Perhaps people with these poorly understood, invisible illnesses are not malingerers after all, or suffering from psychological disorders. Perhaps we’re actually the canaries in the coal mine of our modern world, our plight a warning to all of humanity to please pay attention, and please fix what is broken.

After all, no one is immune. Someday you could find yourself in my shoes, telling a similar story to what feels like thousands of deaf ears, begging the world to listen before it’s too late. And I really, really don’t want that to happen to you.

Participate in Research

Hormones MatterTM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with the fluoroquinolone antibiotics, Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others: The Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Side Effects Study. The study is anonymous, takes 20-30 minutes to complete and is open to anyone who has used a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Please complete the study and help us understand the scope of fluoroquinolone reactions.

Hormones MatterTM conducts other crowdsourced surveys on medication reactions. To take one of our other surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

What Else Can I Do To Help?

Hormones MatterTM is completely unfunded at this juncture and we rely entirely on crowdsourcing and volunteers to conduct the research and produce quality health education materials for the public. If you’d like help us improve healthcare with better data, get involved. Become an advocate, spread the word about our site, our research and our mission. Suggest a study. Share a study. Join our team. Write for us. Partner with us. Help us grow.

To support Hormones Matter and our research projects – Crowdfund Us.

Related posts:

adverse drug reactionsAdverse Drug Reactions (ADRs): We’re ALL at Risk beyond the ER with FQWhen Investigating Fluoroquinolone Reactions, Move Beyond the ER cipro vision problemsA Fluoroquinolone Reaction After Just One Pill

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Fluoroquinolone Antibiotic Dangers: Why Didn’t They Tell Me?

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Lisa Bloomquist

Hundreds of articles about the harmful effects of fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) have been published in medical and scientific journals, yet most of the articles have been ignored by the medical community and downplayed by the FDA. I can only surmise that the ignorance around the dangers of fluoroquinolones is because they are used as antibiotics and antibiotics are “supposed” to be safe and only damage bacteria, while leaving human cells unscathed. Or maybe it is because of the constant repetition of the baseless statement that fluoroquinolones have an “excellent record of safety and tolerance;” a statement that is only true if delayed reactions, tolerance thresholds and epigenetic effects are not taken into consideration.

Regardless of the motivations of those who are ignoring how destructive fluoroquinolones are, valuable information about the safety (or rather, the dangers) of fluoroquinolones as a class of drugs, have been ignored. Warnings about the toxicity of fluoroquinolones have been noted in journal article after journal article, yet they are still some of the most popular antibiotics prescribed.

Caution, prudence and thoughtfulness should be exercised when prescribing drugs that are as dangerous and destructive as fluoroquinolones. Fluoroquinolones are chemo drugs that are being mis-prescribed as antibiotics. Before filling a prescription for a fluoroquinolone to treat a sinus infection, or to use prophylactically for traveler’s diarrhea, or putting in your child’s ear to treat an ear infection, I encourage you to note the cellular destruction done by fluoroquinolones. Neither the FDA nor the average doctor is properly warning patients about the dangers of fluoroquinolones. Unfortunately, it is up to patients to inform themselves and gain proper warnings about the consequences of these dangerous drugs.

Fluoroquinolones Damage DNA

Back in 1992, when fluoroquinolones were first gaining popularity, Scientists raised concerns about their safety in an article published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States:

“the interaction (of fluoroquinolones) with DNA is still of great concern because of the possible long-term genotoxicity of quinolone compounds, which are increasingly adopted as first-choice antibiotics for the treatment of many infections, and because it addresses the real mechanism of action of this class of molecules.”

Fluoroquinolones are topoisomerase interrupters, meaning that their mechanism of action is described as, “The bactericidal action of ciprofloxacin results from inhibition of the enzymes topoisomerase II (DNA gyrase) and topoisomerase IV (both Type II topoisomerases), which are required for bacterial DNA replication, transcription, repair, and recombination.” (Cipro warning label).

Very little, if any, concern over the possible genotoxic effects of fluoroquinolones were expressed to the public as they gained popularity and uses were expanded in the early 1990s. The warnings and concerns expressed by the scientists quoted were ignored.

It is noted in Molecular Pharmacology, “Delayed Cytotocicity and Cleavage of Mitochondrial DNA in Ciprofloxacin Treated Mammalian Cells” that fluoroquinolones “cause a selective loss of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)” and “The loss in mtDNA was associated with a delayed loss in mitochondrial function.” Additionally, it is stated that “ciprofloxacin induces reversible double-stranded breaks in nuclear DNA.” Studies have shown that both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA is adversely affected by fluoroquinolones, yet those studies have not gained traction in the medical community and have effectively been ignored.

The intergenerational effects of depleting DNA with fluoroquinolones is unknown at this time (I surmise that this is because these studies have been ignored, intergenerational studies are difficult to do, and funding for them is hard to come by). However, it is known that, “a number of human mitochondrial genetic diseases that are clinically discreet are being diagnosed at unexpected rates” (source). Additionally, in an article published in Nature in 2013 entitled, “Topoisomerases facilitate transcription of long genes linked to autism” it was noted that, “Our data suggest that chemicals or genetic mutations that impair topoisomerases, and possibly other components of the transcription elongation machinery that interface with topoisomerases, have the potential to profoundly affect the expression of long ASD (autism spectrum disorder) candidate genes.” Fluoroquinolones are topoisomerase interrupting chemicals.

Thus far, neither the increase in mitochondrial genetic diseases nor the link between topoisomerase interrupting drugs and autism have been acknowledged by the medical community, the FDA or the general public.

Fluoroquinolones Damage Mitochondria

The deleterious effects of fluoroquinolones on mitochondria have been noted repeatedly in journal articles, and even by the FDA.

In Science Translational Medicine, “Bactericidal Antibiotics Induce Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Oxidative Damage in Mammalian Cells,” it is noted that bactericidal antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone, “damage mammalian tissues by triggering mitochondrial release of reactive oxygen species (ROS).” Even the FDA acknowledges that fluoroquinolones cause mitochondrial damage. In their April 27, 2013 Pharmacovigilance Review, “Disabling Peripheral Neuropathy Associated with Systemic Fluoroquinolone Exposure,” the FDA notes that the mechanism for action through which fluoroquinolones induce peripheral neuropathy is mitochondrial toxicity. The report says:

“Ciprofloxacin has been found to affect mammalian topoisomerase II, especially in mitochondria. In vitro studies in drug-treated mammalian cells found that nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin cause a loss of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), resulting in a decrease of mitochondrial respiration and an arrest in cell growth. Further analysis found protein-linked double-stranded DNA breaks in the mtDNA from ciprofloxacin-treated cells, suggesting that ciprofloxacin was targeting topoisomerase II activity in the mitochondria.”

Fluoroquinolones are very, very bad for mitochondria. As the engines of our cells, healthy mitochondria are very necessary for healthy cells. Mitochondrial dysfunction is connected with many chronic diseases, including autism, CFS/ME, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease,multiple sclerosis, etc.

Fluoroquinolones Alter Neurons

Fluoroquinolones downgrade GABA-A receptors and can lead to a variety of CNS related symptoms of fluoroquinolone toxicity such as “dizziness, confusion, tremors, hallucinations, depression, and, rarely, psychotic reactions have progressed to suicidal ideations/thoughts and self-injurious behavior such as attempted or completed suicide,” as well as “nervousness, agitation, insomnia, anxiety, nightmares or paranoia” (Cipro warning label).

It was concluded in an article in The Journal of Neurophysiology in 1991 that, “in the presence of an anti-inflammatory agent, the quinolone antibiotics decrease the affinity of GABAA receptors, the result being induction of epileptogenic neurotoxicities.”

GABA receptors
Copyright 2009 Pharmacy Weekly, Inc. Printed with permission.

An article in Pharmacology Weekly that was published in 2009 notes that fluoroquinolones “modulate the activity of the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-A receptor” leading to the CNS side-effects of fluoroquinolones that include “tremors, restlessness, anxiety, confusion, paranoia, insomnia, etc.” and that “the presence of an NSAID or NSAID metabolite can significantly augment this effect and result in an even greater inhibition of GABA-A receptor activity” and lead to seizures, in addition to the other CNS effects listed. But, in 2015, people still are not systematically warned about the possibility of fluoroquinolone induced “nervousness, agitation, insomnia, anxiety, nightmares or paranoia” and NSAIDs are still prescribed concurrently with fluoroquinolones, despite documentation that the combination of fluoroquinolones and NSAIDs downgrade important neurotransmitters.

Though the symptoms that arise when GABA-A receptors are downgraded are noted on the warning labels for fluoroquinolones, nowhere on the warning label does it say that these effects can be long-lasting, or even permanent.

Generally, the effects of fluoroquinolones on neurotransmitters are ignored, and ensuing anxiety, insomnia and psychiatric illnesses are assumed to have nothing to do with the antibiotics that were prescribed for a sinus or urinary tract infection. The research and the warnings, have been ignored.

Fluoroquinolones Damage Cells

In The Journal of Medical Microbiology it was noted that:

“Dougherty & Saukkonen (1985) showed that inhibition of DNA synthesis by nalidixic acid, a DNA gyrase inhibitor, results in morphological changes consistent with a loss of membrane integrity and leakage of intracellular components. Similar results were presented by Wickens et al. (2000), who noticed a decrease of both membrane integrity and membrane potential after exposure of E. coli to CIP. One of the proposed explanations of this finding is that, as a result of processes induced by inhibition of DNA replication, cells lose their capacity to synthesize necessary components and to maintain the proper membrane structure (Dougherty & Saukkonen, 1985).”

Naladixic acid is the root component of all fluoroquinolones.

In case it needs to be said, cellular membrane integrity and keeping intracellular components inside cells, are important. It is important for cells as a whole, and for organelles within cells such as mitochondria. As the importance of the microbiome is being uncovered, the importance of the bacteria in our guts maintaining cellular integrity is slowly being realized as well.

Fluoroquinolones are Dangerous Drugs

The FDA warning label for Cipro/ciprofloxacin is 43 pages long. The serious and severe adverse effects listed on the warning label are due to the cellular destruction done by Cipro. Other fluoroquinolones (Levaquin and Avelox are popular) have similar safety/danger profiles.

Though no antibiotics are without consequence, the cellular destruction done by fluoroquinolones makes them far more dangerous than other antibiotics. Fluoroquinolones should be categorized as chemo drugs along with all other topoisomerase interrupters. Please be wary and cautious with fluoroquinolones, and don’t use them unless it is absolutely necessary.

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Information about the author, and adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) can be found on Lisa Bloomquist’s site, www.floxiehope.com.

Participate in Research

Hormones MatterTM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with the fluoroquinolone antibiotics, Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others: The Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Side Effects Study. The study is anonymous, takes 20-30 minutes to complete and is open to anyone who has used a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Please complete the study and help us understand the scope of fluoroquinolone reactions.

Hormones MatterTM conducts other crowdsourced surveys on medication reactions. To take one of our other surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

What Else Can I Do To Help?

Hormones MatterTM is completely unfunded at this juncture and we rely entirely on crowdsourcing and volunteers to conduct the research and produce quality health education materials for the public. If you’d like help us improve healthcare with better data, get involved. Become an advocate, spread the word about our site, our research and our mission. Suggest a study. Share a study. Join our team. Write for us. Partner with us. Help us grow.

To support Hormones Matter and our research projects – Crowdfund Us.

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The Truth About Salt

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Angela A Stanton,Ph.D.

When we salt our food, we rarely think of salt as a crucial aspect of our physiology. In particular, we think it has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than taste and we certainly do not think of hormones. In this short post, I would like to clarify a few myths about salt and salt types and hint at their importance and hormonal connection.

The Myths of Designer Salts

Myth #1 sea salt versus table salt. There are hundreds of posts on the Internet about the benefits of sea salt over table salt. I would like everyone to know that there is only one salt on planet earth: sea salt. The fact that it may be called table salt simply suggests that some time ago it was clearly understood by all that all salt came from the sea. There was no need to place the word “sea” in front of salt; we all knew what it was. Somehow we have forgotten that salt comes from the sea. Now many designer salts have showed up with the word “sea” in front of the word salt and sell for much more than table salt. Don’t be fooled: all salts come from the sea! Preferences, of course, may mean you pick a designer salt over table salt, but I would like to make sure you know that in terms of salt, they are the same for the body.

You may ask: how can they be the same for the body if one contains all kinds of other elements as well as pure salt itself. The answer is very simple. In the body, salt molecules (NaCl) break down into ions (Na+ and Cl-) and only these two ions participate in what is called voltage activated sodium pumps (Nav1.1-1.9) where 1.1 to 1.9 indicates that there are 9 such pumps and Nav stands for voltage activated sodium pump. Thus, for the body only ions matter. Na+ is inside the cell and is positively charged. Cl- is outside the cell and is negatively charged. The two create the voltage necessary for the cell to function. Some of these pumps also have additional functions—such as sending pain message when a pump opens and does not close properly. The influx of Na+ and Cl- can cause the signal of pain to go off causing chronic pain. Much is yet to be understood by the function of salt but the one thing we already know: salt is NaCl and no additional organic matter matters.

Myth #2 refers to rock salt that comes from mountains like the Himalayas in various colors. They make beautiful lamps but in reality they are sea salts that have fossilized as the tectonic plates have shifted and lifted the Himalayans out from under the sea. Why are they pink or orange and very colorful in general? Because as the mountains were lifted, pressure increased on the salt deposits and the weight of the mountain pressing heat and metals through the salt created fossilized salt with various metals trapped in the salt itself. There is nothing wrong with eating fossilized rock salt except that by the nature of the fossilization process of high heat, pressure, and the many metals, a large percentage of these “minerals” entrapped in the salt are actually radioactive metals. Again, it is a taste question whether you prefer Himalayan or other salt but know what you are getting.

Myth #3 is Celtic and similar sea salts of various colors that are collected from clay pools and evaporated such that each sea salt crystal has little cavities of entrapped water with “minerals.” I see many lists of minerals for various sea salts but few of us actually consider where those minerals come from. I know we all love to eat sea food, fish, shellfish, and sea weeds as well. The mineral deposits in designer sea salts come from the debris of these sea animals, including their excrement and dead bodies. There is nothing wrong with eating fish poo and dead fish as long as you know that your choice of salt contains it. Some of these salts are proud to also include a bit of clay, and hence, the moisture must be kept else you will need a hammer and chisel to break the salt up. So, much of the charm about designer salts is trickery and harmless misinformation that takes advantage of those who are not aware.

The truth: salt, by chemical composition Sodium-Chloride (Na+, Cl-) is only these two elements combined, as discussed above. Our bodies use these chemicals only in ionic form. Salt is part of the baby’s amniotic fluid in our bodies (not Himalayan salt, and not various colored sea salts; just simple Na+ Cl-). This standard chemical element constitutes a very large part of the over 70% saline brine of our bodies. We are made of salt water. When we visit the emergency room with any illness, the most often used first step – the needle with a clear liquid dripped into our vein – is also saline water electrolyte. Electrolytes contain other elements to complete the full list of micro and macro nutrients of the 70% brine.

Other Minerals in Salt

What about the so called “minerals” that are in the designer salts? Do we need them?

  • Magnesium is a very important element that provides a key such that the cells can open at all given the proper electrical environment. Magnesium also provides crucial nutrient for the mitochondria (little bacteria in every single cell of our body that converts the food we eat to energy packets our cells can use). You get more magnesium out of a bite of food (just about any food) than from an entire box of designer salt.
  • Calcium is needed for high voltage channels where the neurotransmitters are released.
  • Potassium is needed to keep the balance of hydration in the cell and outside of the cell to ensure that the cell is not overly hydrated (potassium is a diuretic).
  • Phosphates. We also need phosphates and other elements and of course a ton of water, but the elements in designer salt sold as essential mineral are minuscule and meaningless.
  • Iodine. Another important factor is iodine. Designer salts do not contain iodine. In the US, the government has gone through great trouble placing iodine into our salt to eradicate goiter, a disease of the thyroid. Without adequate iodine our thyroid is not able to produce the right amount of hormone to keep our brain healthy. Recall also, in Japan after the nuclear plant released all that radiation, the first item sold out throughout the country was iodine. Iodine acts like a sponge, soaking up many toxins from our body to be able to eliminate them. Radioactivity is one of those things iodine can help clear from our bodies.

Salt and Hormones

So the question then is: what does salt have to do with our hormones? Does it matter? Indeed, it does. Those who have read the migraine series 3-part posts know that the most critical element in preventing and treating migraines is salt. Every single neuron in our brain has several voltage-gated sodium pumps (sodium-potassium pumps) to generate voltage. Without such voltage the neurons are not able to manufacture and release their neurotransmitters-hormones in the body. Thus, restricting salt in your diet retards the hormone manufacturing of your body. In previous articles, I showed how studies show that low salt diets are harmful even for those with preexisting heart conditions and hypertension. Salt does not increase blood pressure, provided that salt is consumed with sufficient amount of water, along with potassium and the other minerals and nutrients, I listed above.

Sodium retains water thereby hydrating the cells. Sodium chloride maintains the polarity differences between the inside and the outside of the cell membrane to control the electrical activity, which then open the pumps. Having enough salt in your brain makes the difference between having a headache/migraine or not. What if it also helps prevent other diseases of the brain? There are suggestions that fibromyalgia and neuropathy may be connected to one of the Nav pumps. I wonder if other conditions such as bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, and even depression could be, at least partly, caused by an inappropriate level of sodium in the brain?

Possible Role for Sodium – Potassium Pumps in Disease

Let’s investigate one of the voltage activated sodium pumps. The one we seem to know most about so far: Nav1.7.  According to recent research, this particular pump has a critical role in chronic pain dampening. Experiments on various poisonous animals—including the Chinese red-headed centipede and the snake black mamba—show that their venom seems to selectively choose this particular pump to dampen the pain associated with some types of chronic pain. The pain signals need not be located in any one particular location of the body, but are relayed by the brain as hormones release for the pain message. People with neuropathy, such as Type 2 Diabetes or those who have been been floxed (suffered an adverse reaction to a fluoroquinolone antibiotics) are very familiar with this pain. Nothing seems to help with this type of pain except a very few types of strong drugs of the brain, some (like Gabapentin) inhibit nearly all activities in the body in near-full-force. The drugs of the brain are systemic whereas the venom is capable of acting on only one sodium-potassium pump, the Nav1.7.  Perhaps, in the future, this finding can be applied to reduce neuropathic pain without global nervous system dampening.

My Two Cents

I suspect most ailments of the central nervous system that include a hyper-sensitivity for pain will become a subject of sodium pump malfunction research. There are also indications that there is a switch in the connection of the peripheral nervous system to the spine, and thereby the central nervous system, where there should be a relay station to either inhibit or amplify the pain. Apparently, at this relay station the switch is flipped backwards and what should be inhibiting actually amplifies. Pain experienced from these crossed wires is called allodyna. I suspect we will be hearing much about this term in the future and how it connects to various sodium pump malfunctions that today we do not yet understand.

Sources:

Pain Scientific American December 2014; p:62-67

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Post Fluoroquinolone Sex and Libido

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Lisa Bloomquist

One of my symptoms of getting “floxed” (a short-hand term for fluoroquinolone toxicity – an adverse reaction to a fluoroquinolone antibiotic including Cipro/Ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/Levofloxacin, Avelox/Moxifloxacin, and Floxin/Ofloxacin) was losing my “give-a-damn.”  I stopped caring about many aspects of my life – my job, my relationships, my aspirations, and many other things that used to give me pleasure; including three things that were previously on my list of favorite things in the world – food, sex and alcohol.  My desire for those things, things that used to bring me pleasure and excitement, was simply gone – over night – as my body went from being healthy and strong to being fatigued, in pain and unable to move much at all.

To lose the desire for sex, at the age of 32, was bizarre and disquieting. At 32 I was supposed to be at my sexual peak, but instead I found myself not caring at all about my former favorite recreational activity. As I went through sexual relationships I was able to muster up the energy to participate, and enjoy, sex. But it was different after I got “floxed.”  My way of thinking and feeling about sex was just… different.  I no longer cared about sex and I no longer desired it. It moved from the top of my priority list to the bottom. My libido was a faint shadow of its former self.

As I’ve recovered (it took a couple of years to recover from the toxic reaction that I had to an antibiotic that I took to treat a urinary tract infection brought on, ironically, by sex), my sex drive has come back, and I have started to feel like myself again – with the desires and appetites that make me feel like me. It’s nice to be recovering, and to be getting my “give-a-damn” back.

Because I was able to “fake it till you make it” as they say, my story of losing my sex drive is not the most compelling.  It was not the biggest loss that I suffered from, and, well, there are worse things in the world than what my vagina went through. But some of the other sexual side-effects that other people have suffered through as a result of fluoroquinolone toxicity, are far worse, and they are nothing to be dismissed or disregarded.

My fellow “floxie” friends have been through more sexual adverse effects of fluoroquinolones than I have. Here are a few snippets of their stories:

  • A woman in her mid-20s is unable to orgasm
  • A man in his 40s feels like he is being kicked in the groin when he orgasms
  • A man in his 50s does not respond to any erectile dysfunction medications – including a shot that “works every time” according to his doctor
  • A woman in her 50s experiences nerves that are so over-stimulated that she has a continuous, painful orgasm that lasts for hours
  • A woman in her 30s with extreme vaginal dryness
  • A man in his 30s with erectile dysfunction
  • People of all ages and both sexes who have not had sex for years

I hope that some of my “floxie” friends come forward with their stories about what it feels like to go through the loss of sexual function and sexuality described above.  It affects every aspect of a person’s life and it even rocks their identity. It is wrong for a drug to take away such an important part of being human as one’s sexuality.

Fixing a person’s sexual dysfunction, or lack of desire, isn’t as easy as taking a pill – though the people who advertise Viagra and Cialis would like for us to think that it is.  The people who are suffering from fluoroquinolone induced sexual side-effects are, unfortunately, not helped by any pharmaceutical “cures.”

Sexual dysfunction is real, it is serious and it is life altering.  To take away a person’s ability to be sexual with an unnecessarily strong antibiotic that damages a patient’s central, peripheral and autonomic nervous systems, is wrong.

Please consider the possibility of losing your ability and desire to have sex before you take Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox or Floxin.  If there are alternative antibiotics available, please use those; because your sexuality is really quite important and fixing it once it’s broken isn’t easy.

Information about Fluoroquinolone Toxicity

Information about the author, and adverse reactions to fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro/ciprofloxacin, Levaquin/levofloxacin, Avelox/moxifloxacin and Floxin/ofloxacin) can be found on Lisa Bloomquist’s site, www.floxiehope.com.

Participate in Research

Hormones MatterTM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with the fluoroquinolone antibiotics, Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others: The Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Side Effects Study. The study is anonymous, takes 20-30 minutes to complete and is open to anyone who has used a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Please complete the study and help us understand the scope of fluoroquinolone reactions.

Hormones MatterTM conducts other crowdsourced surveys on medication reactions. To take one of our other surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

What Else Can I Do To Help?

Hormones MatterTM is completely unfunded at this juncture and we rely entirely on crowdsourcing and volunteers to conduct the research and produce quality health education materials for the public. If you’d like help us improve healthcare with better data, get involved. Become an advocate, spread the word about our site, our research and our mission. Suggest a study. Share a study. Join our team. Write for us. Partner with us. Help us grow. For more information contact us at: info@hormonesmatter.com.

To support Hormones Matter and our research projects – Crowdfund Us.

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The Doctor Said Not to Worry About Levaquin Warnings

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Patty Ireland

I was floxed on October 8 of 2012. I was given Levaquin while on high dose of prednisone as a prophylactic measure during an asthma flare. I had been on a 10 day course of 60mg/day prednisone, was off a week, and then had to go back on for an asthma flare. The asthma doctor gave me Levaquin as a “prophylactic measure” because she was afraid I would pick up some kind of infection at work. I had no infection at the time.

When I filled the prescription, the pharmacist warned me about the tendon issues with Levaquin, especially since I was over 60, and on prednisone. He said I should drink plenty of water and I should be fine. The scrip came with a 7-page patient medication guide. On the first page was “What is the most important thing I need to know about Levaquin?”  It included the warning about tendon issues.

I called the doctor back and said I didn’t think I should take the drug.

She said they use it this way all the time and no one ever really has a problem. So I took the first pill and went to bed.

My Levaquin Reaction

I woke up 4 hours after taking the first pill, with tremors, ringing in my ears that sounded like I was in a tent full of cicadas, and audial hallucinations that sounded like the soundtrack to Rosemary/s Baby (the evil Roman chanting). I was also seeing things out of the corner of my eyes. I called the doctor the next day to report the symptoms.

She said, “Oh it can’t be the Levaquin, it must be the prednisone. It can make you jumpy.”

I replied that I have been taking prednisone all my life, and never had anything like this. I took the second pill that night, anyway.

The side effects got worse and I finally read all 7 pages of the patient guide. I realized that I was suffering the CNS and peripheral neuropathy issues, and decided I would quit the Levaquin. I called the doctor the next morning and she wanted to give me another antibiotic.

I said “but I don’t actually have an infection, right?”

She said, “yes.”

I said no more antibiotics.

The Next Few Weeks Post Levaquin Toxicity

The audial and visual hallucinations went away after two days, but the tinnitus and the tremors remain to this day.

Eight days later I left for a long-planned trip to Florida for wildlife photography. I woke up in the middle of the night in a hotel room 1100 miles from home with my whole body on fire, pain in my neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles feeling like they had hot pokers sticking through. I had burning electrical sensations in my hands and feet, a ring of electricity running around the top of my head. I could barely walk. My thighs felt like I had tried to run a marathon with no warm up and that they were going to collapse under me at any moment. Prior to this, I was used to hiking all day carrying 25 lbs of photo equipment through forests, swamps, etc.

Post Levaquin Insomnia and Sleepwalking

I won’t even try to describe the next 10 days in Florida before I could get home, but needless to say I did not do a lot of wildlife photography that trip. I also developed insomnia. I could not sleep more than 1-2 hours at a time, and I would have very vivid dreams. I found myself sleepwalking, and having nightmares, which continued when I returned home. I would find myself in the kitchen making coffee at 1:30 AM because the dream that the alarm had gone off was so vivid. One night, I woke up on my deck in my underwear and barefoot at 2 AM in below zero weather (with snow on the deck) smoking a cigarette, because I was dreaming I was back in Florida at the non-smoking condo. The side effects of fluoroquinolone antibiotics are worse than the symptoms of the illnesses for which they are prescribed. This is not appropriate.

In the year since my reaction, I have been through neurologists, rheumatologists, physical therapy, and psych/neuro testing for the loss of memory and brain function. I have been diagnosed with essential tremor and fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, with brain fog, reduced cognitive functioning, insomnia, high blood pressure, to name a few. I also have ongoing stomach issues. Here too, the medications that have been prescribed for the adverse effects of Levaquin – the antidepressants, anti-seizure medications, benzodiazepines and pain killers – have side effects far worse than what I experienced post Levaquin reaction and do nothing to heal my body. They only mask my symptoms and don’t even mask them that well.

Going Forward Post Levaquin Toxicity

I use turmeric extract 3 times a day for pain management. The pain never goes away totally, but the turmeric keeps it down to a dull roar. The hot poker sensation that I once felt, is now less frequent. I always have pain though. The sensation of imminent collapse in my thighs never goes away, even though I am  back to  walking 3 miles a day. The tremors have actually progressed. The tremors and the brain fog (memory loss, loss of words, losing track of what I am doing, loss of ability to multi-task ) have kept me unable to work since May of 2013.  And, I still can’t sleep more than 2 hours at a time or with sleep aids 3-4 hours. Here, in December of 2013, I am still disabled. My GP is also certified in Functional Medicine, and we are working with a course of supplementation based on blood tests for oxidative stress and dietary changes. We are following Dr. David Perlmutter’s Grain Brain Diet to improve neurological issues. We are both researching all of the possibilities we can, and hoping each day for some kind of breakthrough for this incredible illness.

Participate in Research

Hormones MatterTM is conducting research on the side effects and adverse events associated with the fluoroquinolone antibiotics, Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others: The Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Side Effects Study. The study is anonymous, takes 20-30 minutes to complete and is open to anyone who has used a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Please complete the study and help us understand the scope of fluoroquinolone reactions.

Hormones MatterTM conducts other crowdsourced surveys on medication reactions. To take one of our other surveys, click here.

To sign up for our newsletter and receive weekly updates on the latest research news, click here.

What Else Can I Do To Help?

Hormones MatterTM is completely unfunded at this juncture and we rely entirely on crowdsourcing and volunteers to conduct the research and produce quality health education materials for the public. If you’d like help us improve healthcare with better data, get involved. Become an advocate, spread the word about our site, our research and our mission. Suggest a study. Share a study. Join our team. Write for us. Partner with us. Help us grow. For more information contact us at: info@hormonesmatter.com.

To support Hormones Matter and our research projects – Crowdfund Us.

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